Plankton Tow 1
Lisa Gilbert
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“Each of them... discovered and reaffirmed with astonishment the knowledge that all things are one thing and that one thing is all things—plankton, a shimmering phosphorescence on the sea and the spinning planets and an expanding universe, all bound together by the elastic string of time. It is advisable to look from the tide pool to the stars and then back to the tide pool again.”
– John Steinbeck & Ed Ricketts Sea of Cortez (1941)
Arrival
Arrival
Who we are:
an OCEAN-20 class at Cabrillo College.
Our vessel: Western Flyer. Once a purse seiner in pursuit of fish, John Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts turned the ship toward research in 1940.
Our purpose on this fine fall day:
Read the clues Monterey Bay offers us, including those offered by the tiniest water animals: plankton.
Keeping lookout
Keeping lookout
How do we keep watch for microscopic plankton?
Find what's eating them!
Lorena and America point us toward birds and fish.
Spotted
Spotted
Not far from Moss Landing, some humpbacks let us know they are here.
We slow down. We stop.
We wave back.
We thank you.
Lunch time
Lunch time
Our echosounder confirms what the whales already told us.
These waters are full of tiny plankton.
Sound bounces off them and lights up the screen.
The word "plankton" comes from the same Greek root as "planet," meaning wanderer.
Net time
Net time
We ask permission to lower the net into the water.
The holes in this net are only 80 micrometers.
Anything larger than the holes will be caught in our net.
We only take a little.
Question: How small is 80 micrometers?
Answer: One-tenth the size of the smallest pencil mark I can make.
The sample
The sample
Pouring off the water, we concentrate our sample into jars.
The sample is slightly orangish-pinkish, like the color of shrimp.
Zooming into the microscopic universe
Zooming into the microscopic universe
Humpbacks eat plankton by the ton: we thank you for sharing with us.
Magnified 40 times.
The Cabrillo College OCEAN-20 research cruises in Fall 2024 were funded by an Office of Naval Research STEM Award made to Stanford University with the Western Flyer Foundation as a sub-awardee. WFF Crew: Paul Tate, John Garza, Kevin Gregg, Rebecca Mostow, and Sierra Garcia
This course is part of the Marine Science Certificate of Achievement at Cabrillo College
Fall 2024 OCEAN-20 Students: Eli, Kaitlyn, Keenan, Sydney, Alyssa, Jasper, Chris, Matthew, Han, Blake, Kory, Naoko, Katie, Lorena, and America
OCEAN-20 Professor: Lisa Gilbert (ligilber@cabrillo.edu)
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